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I'm looking for info on a Ridgeway piano. I think it might be a stencil name, but perhaps not. I did some quick research and found a company called Ridgeway making quality player pianos, but they started in the 20's and this one is from 1919. It says "Ridgeway - New York". Does anyone know about this company? The piano is not a player. Inside are the words "upright grand". I will post the serial number soon.

The Pierce Piano Atlas says that Ridgeways were made in New York for the O. K. Houck Piano Co. of Memphis, TN. The listing for Houck of St. Louis says its pianos were made by "Blasius". Blasius & Sons says "see Albrecht, Phila, PA, and Rice-wuest (?), Woodbury, NJ". Albrecht goes back to 1789, some of the earliest pianos in America.

It says here here that "In 1887, the Blasius & Sons Piano Company purchased the Charles Albrecht Company" so the 1915 Ridgeway was probably made by Blasius, not Albrecht.

There is a little about Blasius here, but no mention of Ridgeway. It is possible that the Ridgeway brand was created by Blasius as a lower-priced line of pianos, but that is just speculation on my part.

I understand from your other post that you are trying to decide which piano to keep - the Weber or the Ridgeway.

There are several signs just from the casework that the Weber is a higher quality piano. Weber pianos were among the best made in their day - the company and its pianos were in the same class as Steinway, Chickering, and Knabe (at least through 1903 when Weber merged with Aeolian, but Weber was still Aeolian's flagship brand).

If you can take off the upper, front panel of both pianos, and take some pictures of the insides and action of both, it will help as well, but really only an expert is going to be able to evaluate them both in person. It sounds like that your piano tech likes the Weber. Has he or she inspected the Ridgeway? How do the two pianos play? How do they sound?

I've got some more info on the Ridgeway piano: inside is a label that says "Bjur Bros." It is a warranty statement. The serial number is 27618. It also says "Patented March 19, 1907. Down near the action is a metal bar with the words "Peerless Action". I've done a few searches, but haven't found a connection between the Bjur Bros. company and the name Ridgewood. Does anyone know of any other names that company used? Thanks. As for the Weber vs. Ridgeway, I would only keep the Ridgeway because it's been in the family since the 1930's. There is no comparison on the sound- the Weber is much better. The Ridgeway has an extremely light feel to the action, and everything echoes a bit. I bought the Weber because I didn't like how the Ridgeway sounded in the first place. The pianos are both being stored at my family home, and I've since moved out, so it's really a matter of whether or not I'll ever be able to move the Weber out of the house to wherever I end up, and whether or not it's worth it to do so.

With old pianos, condition is generally more important than who built it. Apart from the fact that one piano has a history with your family, neither of them sound like something that could not be easily replaced in this market. Old pianos are going for free or cheap. Instead of investing money in an old piano to move it across the country, it makes sense to find something locally and put a few hundred into piano servicing.